Writing Prompt - The Great Hairesy

I inspected my face in the mirror. My fingertips traced the curvature of my lips. 

"Exquisite," I whispered and ran my thumb down the edge of my jaw. 

"Sir," came a soft voice from the bathroom's doorway. I yelped and shot upright. My feet slipped from under me and water splashed as my hands slapped down to grab onto the edge of the filled basin. I wheezed and clutched my chest.

"The," I managed to squeeze out. My hand flapped in the air in an attempt to point at the medicine cabinet. 

"Of course, Mr. Bristlechin, sir," Mrs. Clawsworth came forward and rummaged around. She produced a handful of pills. I snatched the lot and gulped them down without a drop of water. I breathed a deep sigh of relief but then pulled a face. 

"I don't know what tastes worse," I said, "Those old opium tablets or these apparently healthier hawthorn ones."

"I wouldn't know, sir."

"I suppose you wouldn't." Despite their age and station, she and her husband, the gardener, had always been perfectly healthy and had served the Bristlechin family for nearly fifty years. But at this moment, her usually comforting presence felt odd. I looked around and saw the darkness outside pressing against the small window on the far side of the room. The sun had clearly set quite some time ago. I glanced at Mrs. Clawsworth as if seeing her properly for the first time that night. She was not dressed in her usual uniform but wore a light green pair of pajamas. Her hair was hastily pulled into a loose bun, and the light from the candle she held shone on some tiny blonde stubble that had started to sprout from her chin. I silently offered her the razor I had been holding. She took it with a nod. "What are you doing here, Mrs. Clawsworth?"

"Some gentlemen have come to see you."

"At this hour?"

"I'm afraid they were quite insistent."

I angrily muttered to myself as I stomped down the long hallway, my feet sinking into the lush red carpet. The stern faces of my ancestors stared down at me as I trudged on. A candle flickered as I passed, the light writhed across the portraits and gave their lifeless eyes a judgemental overtone. The men hung on the right. Women on the left. Immortalized. Each one's beard was greater than the last, with my father, Sir William Bristlechin, brandishing the best of the lot - a full, dark mane as wide as his shoulders. It hung so low that it had to be draped over his shoulder to prevent it from dragging. Across from him hung my mother's portrait. Her blonde beard was neatly trimmed and shaped to her face. Beneath the paintings stood thick wooden podiums. On top of each rested a single item, the greatest invention of each ancestral Bristlechin. The assortment of creations and contraptions ranged from balms for balding chins and lotions for thickening beards to metal supports for the most imaginative beard stylings one could dream of. But it was my father's thousand-tooth comb that always captivated me. I walked up to his podium and picked it up. I ran my thumb over the impossibly thin prongs and rubbed the smooth bone back. He was a true pioneer in detangling the most stubborn of facial hair. For a moment I stood there, trapped in their eternal glares, and pondered. The choices I have made, the things I have done. The ideas I've had.

A rasp on the door at the end of the hallway brought me out of my rumination. A soft orange glow shone from underneath the door. Tendrils of darkness stretched from underneath as unseen figures shifted around. It was a carnival of shadows. Another knock. I sighed and rubbed the tiredness from my face as I walked to the front door. Muffled noises became audible as I neared. I stared at the door handle and bent down to peek out of the keyhole. The light on the other end made it difficult to distinguish who or what had come to pay me a visit at this hour. Multitudes of blurred shapes bustled about.

"Yes I knocked again!" came a shout from behind the door. "No I do not think that is necessary Jack. Yet."

I opened the door gently and courteously as if none of this was unexpected but merely part of my nighttime routine. Yellow and orange flickering torches flared up and torchlight spilled into the house. I blinked to adjust my sight. I stared. Fifty pairs of eyes stared back at me. 

I glanced from face to face. Nobody moved. Nobody spoke. I waited for someone to tell me what this was all about. My eyes fell on the assortment of gardening and farming equipment the lot had with them. Pitchforks and hoes and shovels and even a few hedge trimmers had been brought with them. The torchlight gleamed off freshly sharpened steel.

"It's true!" exclaimed the man on my porch. Obadiah Arganoil. I recognized him from the park where he usually played crossword puzzles and smoked his mahogany pipe. His long, thin beard had become a gentle gray with age and he kept his moustache neatly trimmed. He pointed at me and shouted, "His beard's gone!"

Chaos erupted. The crowd surged forward. They trampled my recently painted porch and shouted and waved their equipment around haphazardly. Bodies piled together and a few shouts and curses were heard above the clamor as sharp objects poked all matters of limbs and torsos. It was only once they had formed a half circle of flesh, fire, and steel around me that they settled. Forty-nine pairs of eyes turned to Obadiah. Obadiah stretched out his hand and wrapped his fingers around my chin. He pressed and my lips puckered under the sudden pressure. 

"It's gone," he repeated. His thumb ran down the edge of my jaw. But I had entertained this long enough. I slapped his hand away and took a step back. 

"That's enough now," I said.

"Ethan," another fellow addressed me, "what happened?"

"Did you accidentally set it ablaze?" another squawked from the back. "That happened to me once!"

"First and foremost, gentlemen, " I held up both my hands with my palms facing them, "at this hour, at this house, you will address me as Sir Bristlechin. You are guests on my property, and quite uninvited I might add, so I think it will do us all well to remember our manners and remain civil." I stared hard at them, waiting for some disagreement. Nobody spoke up. I nodded to show my satisfaction. "Now, to answer your first question, my overly hairy fellow, I shaved it. Cut it right off."

The uproar was deafening. "You shaved it!" Obadiah's eyes popped, and three veins bulged on his forehead. "Blasphemy!" he spat.

I grew concerned for his heart and looked back into the house. Sure enough, Mrs. Clawsworth was standing just inside the doorway, always at the ready at a moment's notice. 

"Mrs. Clawsworth," I called in, "Would you mind running back up and grabbing the bottle of hawthorn for Mr. Arganoil?"

"What do you mean, you cut it right off?" a young lad enquired. He had slipped unnoticed through the larger men's legs to stand at the front of the action. I glanced down, surprised at the youth of the enquirer. His face was still covered in peach fluff and his blonde hair had been cut short on the sides, a typical and accepted style for school. I raised an eyebrow when I saw the crooked bent kitchen spatula gripped tightly in his hand. Obadiah was also surprised by the owner of the question.

"Get back boy."

Before Obadiah could swot the child across the head, I spoke, "What's your name, lad?"

"Jason Strongjaw, Sir Bristlechin." He gleamed with pride and Obadiah subsided, letting the conversation continue. 

"Well, young Mister Strongjaw, you see," I straightened up and puffed up my chest. This wasn't the grand reveal of my new invention that I had hoped for but nonetheless, a true inventor must be flexible and adapt! "I grew tired of all the constant oiling and grooming and trimming and cleaning and washing so, I cut it off. But just taking a knife to my face didn't quite work out well. You see?" I bent down and pointed to a white scar across my cheek. Jason's eyes widened in shock. "So I had to tinker around until I was able to get the right angle for cutting, the right handle for comfort, and the right size for convenience! I call it: the razor!"

A man wailed in the distance. 

"What you do to your face is your own business, sir," another to Obadiah's right said. He wore thick leather gloves and had come to the gathering with a mason's hammer. It jerked upright as he clenched his fists. His hazel beard was knotted into a thick braid that hung up to his chest and it was speckled with fine white dust from the day's work. "but my wife came home yesterday without a trace of her beautiful red growth."

"Ah well, yes," I rocked onto the balls of my feet. "Any great idea, nay, any era-defining invention needs to be tested. I set up a testing station right there on the street of the beard braider's shop and merely offered a free shave." I shrugged. What more was there to say?

"To shave another man's wife!" the mason exclaimed. The hammer clanged as it fell. He lifted his thick able-bodied hands to his face and covered his eyes to lament this apparent lack of decorum.

"Now listen here," I stated, "every person has the right to choose to be bearded or not. And that includes your wives. This antiquated view has honestly gone on long enough." I glanced around at the group gathered. "The ultimate goal of any inventor, of any society, is the betterment of livelihoods for future generations. And this goal is greater than any one life. It is unthinkable that one person should place his own greedy clutching to his life and ego above all who will still come. Sam," I pointed to the town's baker, a short, hairy man with an untamed forest of whiskers, "your wife said she was tired of combing crumbs out of her coils. All she wanted was to feel clean and beautiful. Everyone has the right to that."

"They are a bit annoying, especially when they fall into the bed," he muttered and glanced down. I nodded. I looked back at the mason.

"You wouldn't believe how many of the women simply want their beards to stop scratching their newborn babes when they kiss them! I've already received complimentary letters. I'm sure some of you gentlemen here have noticed a positive change at home." Some men in the crowd shifted uncomfortably and looked down. "If the existence of a beard has more value to you than the happiness of your loved ones," I looked straight ahead at Obadiah, "then perhaps it is your value to them you should be questioning." The challenge did not go unnoticed. Obadiah stepped forward. 

He snarled, "I will not abide by this nonsense. You and this accursed invention will burn tonight." His eyes had a tangerous glint to them. Madness had overcome him. He took another step and came face to face with me. "Ethan, you -" his sentence was cut short as he gagged and retched. His face contorted and he reeled back. He covered his nose and spat, "What is that?"

"Ah, yes. If you hated the razor then you are really going to hate this one," I raised my hands and spread my fingers wide, "Aftershave!"